Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 07:01 PM - Adult and Popular Education
How and when does art in education or inquiry release transformative power for social change?
Learning and Teaching for Transformation E-Dialogue, University of Sussex, International Development Studies
Moderator: Nanci Lee, the Coady International Institute, Canada
Dates: Monday 8 January until Friday 19 January, 2007
Happy New Year to all of our friends and colleagues on LTT. I hope your last year was filled with wonderful words and learning and magic. I am also hoping that we can collectively tackle this question over the next couple of weeks ending January 19th.
Each of these excerpts below relate to the transformative learning power of the arts. As an educator-artist the opportunities in this area excite me. Some of the most inspiring work I have seen in education has been in this arena. Circus-training used to help women who have suffered from violence re-claim their bodies. Theatre professionals working with streetkids to produce plays about poverty and homelessness. Collective murals used to help communities share their ideas and history.
I have drawn from Dr. Darlene Clover's (University of British Columbia) framework of arts and adult education that places it into two areas -- arts in education and arts-based research/inquiry. Beyond that, I leave the doors open to our collective ideas and imagination.
Please feel free to share your assumptions, personal stories, resources, interesting case-studies, poetry or art that has inspired you in the context of learning or teaching. Perhaps you would like to add a question that you have related to this area? I would ask that you as be as specific as possible in your references and cases. This way, they can be compiled at the end of our dialogue. Both left and right brain contributions most welcome.
Where are those songs
my mother and yours
always sang
fitting rhythms
to the whole
vast span of life?....
Sing daughter sing
around you are
unaccountable tunes
some sung
others unsung
sing them
to your rhythms
observe
listen
absorb
soak yourself
bathe
in the stream of life
and then sing
sing
simple songs
for the people
for all to hear
and learn
and sing
with you...
(Micere Githae Mugo-Kenyan poet)
A full summary of the discussion, resources, case-studies, art and poetry shared can be found on the IDS site below. Click on related link. You must sign up as a member in order to access the materials.
| related link
Saturday, January 19, 2008, 07:33 PM - Poetry and Writing
Dragon flies in drag
over river spits,
mustard grasses,
tissue wings
zim hummering.
Their needled bodies
threaded beads, azure
hyphened by ebony
to the period of their
tails. Tumid eyes to tips
to eyes, waging circles
where another begins,
where mist and sigh,
early sky shaking its wings,
water below splitting,
spreading hemispheres
a slow spinning blue
mouths
consuming
tails
consuming
mouths.
Monday, January 14, 2008, 06:28 AM - Adult and Popular Education
Lyrics of the Dawn: Poetry and Social Movements
Public Talk and Poetry Reading at the Rabindranath Tagore Centre in Kolkata, India, February 24, 2009
Budd L Hall
Office of Community-Based Research, University of Victoria
An inspiring talk about poetry in social movements from Elizabeth Alexander's poem for Obama's inauguration to Rabindranath Tagore's classical gems to his own gorgeous words.
Write if you would like a copy.
Thursday, January 10, 2008, 03:43 PM - Outdoor adventure
Tracks
Snow is a form of
memory. Prints of flight,
feast, forage. Scrums of
struggle. Small followed by
bigger followed by
bigger
still.
Marked. Tatooed.
Attempts to
pin the fleeting.
Persistence of parallel
lines rewriting
horizon.
If you want a unique cross-country and telemark ski experience, try Ski Tuonela. Cozy off-the-grid cabins nestled in gorgenous Goose Cove, Cape Breton. It is a 4km ski into the site. Ani always has piping soup on in the main cabin...Check out their website...ok gorgenous was a typo but I kind of like it...
| related link
Monday, January 7, 2008, 05:21 PM - Poetry and Writing
Found an amazing resource through The Conversations Network (U.S.) by Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani. It is a 22 minute video tutorial on how to use skype to record interviews. I am going to use it for my book of life-stories. I can think of all kinds of applications for work and distance learning too. | related link
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